The Obama Administration and the European Commission are exploring the role of innovation inducement prizes.

On May 31, 2011, the European Parliament is holding one of several meetings on innovation inducement prizes for medical technologies.

Senator Sanders recently introduced two bills in the U.S. Senate on medical innovation prize funds, one of which would cover all perscription medicines (S. 1137), and another that would only deal with drugs for HIV/AIDS (S.1138)

The World Health Organization (WHO) has convened an Consultive Expert Working Group (CEWG) to evaluate a number of proposals for innovation inducement prizes in the areas of neglected diseases, AIDS, tuberculosis, and cancer.

MSF, the X-Prize Foundation, and several Latin American and Asian governments are considering a prize fund for low cost diagnostics for Tuberculosis.

On Friday, June 3, 2011, KEI will be hosting a technical workshop to discuss the de-linkage of R&D incentives from product prices, in the context of innovation inducement prizes. People who want to attend this event should sent a note to Krista Cox at krista.cox@keionline.org no later than noon on June 2, 2011.

The 3 hour workshop will feature four speakers with considerable expertise in the area of innovation inducement prizes. There will be also extensive discussion among all workshop participants on several specific innovation prize design issues.